Decades Later, Director Brings His Superman Tale Back To Life

For once, Superman failed to save the day -- Lois Lane was dead, killed by Lex Luthor, and the Man of Steel was left wailing in grief.

But then the hero launched himself into the stratosphere and furiously circled the Earth until time itself reversed and he was given a second chance to make things right.

That's the memorable climax of the 1978 blockbuster Superman: The Movie, and now it appears that the film's director, Richard Donner, has pulled off the same kind of a trick -- a miracle do-over that nobody saw coming.

"Something was taken away from me and then I got a chance to go back and make it right, to make it the way I wanted it to be the first time around. How often does that happen in life? It's amazing," said Donner.

The "dead Lois" in this case was Donner's planned Superman sequel and (to hear his side of the story) the callous villains who snuffed it were producers Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind.

They fired Donner after he had filmed huge chunks of the second movie and brought in a new director, Richard Lester, who jettisoned plenty of Donner's beloved material.

The Superman II that did reach movie theaters in 1980 as a hybrid of Lester and Donner's work was a strong commercial success and earned upbeat reviews.

But now the spinning silver of DVD has helped Donner turn back the clock.

This week, Superman II -- The Richard Donner Cut arrived in stores. Most DVDs labeled "director's cut" are different only around the edges; this one goes in all new directions by lopping out huge chunks of the familiar theatrical version and weaving in "lost" scenes salvaged from the vaults.

There is even footage from screen tests shoehorned into the narrative to cover the script pages Donner never filmed. The most fascinating of them shows a skinny Christopher Reeve as a tuxedoed Clark Kent in horn-rim glasses. In that scene, Lois Lane pulls out a revolver and takes a shot at Clark to prove he's Superman -- it's one of the new scenes that enhances the Lois and Clark relationship. The Donner Cut also has more menace, more Brando and more emphasis on father-and-son mythology.

That's not to say that the movie is joyless. In this Superman II, Lois emerges from a Fortress of Solitude corridor with nothing on but Superman's shirt. Donner laughed at the addition.

"In that other version, she gets a kiss from Superman. C'mon. She figures out that Clark is Superman and that's all she gets? Not in my movie," said Donner.

Here's how Bryan Singer, the director of Superman Returns (2006), also released this week on DVD, describes The Donner Cut:

"To watch these scenes, to see Superman and Lois and that chemistry and the real menace of the villains, it's the movie that we all wanted to see."

The Singer film's retail arrival has inspired a flurry of Superman-related releases, but The Donner Cut is the one fans are worked up about.

"This is the movie," Singer said, "that we thought was gone forever."

That doesn't mean it's always pretty.

Today's technology smoothed out the re-edit, but there's only so much that could be done and there are a few clunky spots. And a casual moviegoer who hasn't seen Superman II lately may wonder what all the fuss is about. Aside from the gunplay scene and an opening sequence at the Daily Planet, plenty of the changes will fly right over the head of everyone except true believers. (A quick test: Does it make your heart beat faster to know that this time the bad guys destroy the Washington Monument, not Mount Rushmore?)

What's historic is that Donner was given Warner Bros. resources and the blessing of his old foe, Ilya Salkind, to recut and reimagine a movie that was once a poisoned memory. Warner Bros. has even bundled it with the Reeve movies in a giant boxed set of Superman DVDs, giving Donner's revisionism more credibility.

One thing they didn't give him was a paycheck.

Warner Bros. execs say they are laying out big money for the re-edit, advertising, marketing, and so forth. But the most compelling subplot is that Salkind will make more money off The Donner Cut than the man whose name is in the title.

The Salkinds -- Ilya and his late father, Alexander -- hired Donner in 1976 to take the classic American myth of Superman and create an epic story that would be told over two films, a la The Godfather. The films would be shot somewhat simultaneously to save money on special effects and Brando's high salary.

But Donner's exacting pace and ambitions left the Salkinds fuming.

In late 1977, work on Superman II was halted and all resources went into the first movie. When the first Superman became a firecracker success, Donner assumed that it assured his return; the Salkinds saw it as the franchise security they needed to boot the irksome director.

Donner was heartbroken. He has plenty on his resume -- he directed The Omen and the Lethal Weapon movies -- but Superman was magic.

"I wish Chris could have seen this. I wish Marlon could have seen it. But we finally made it right. Or at least we tried to."